Home-made Cheez-Its

Oh, Cheez-Its. You are my absolute favourite snack and I always look forward to devouring you when I visit Virginia. However, you insist on being completely unavailable here in the United Kingdom. Okay, that's not fair. You are available but only at exorbitant prices and in very inconveniently located speciality shops. Therefore, it was time to replace you.

I'd seen mention of home-made Cheez-Its around the internet on previous journeys down the rabbit hole that is late-night recipe hunting but I always thought it would be far too much effort for a snack. Especially one I probably shouldn't be eating anyway. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the ingredient list is remarkably short - only five items and one of them is water!

So, I bit the bullet, hauled myself down to my local shop and got to work. Warning: this recipe would be mighty irritating if you didn't have a food processor. With one, the dough comes together in minutes. And by using the parchment paper to roll out the dough, the clean up is equally simple since you aren't scattering flour all over your counter tops. Some of the recipes I saw added a bit of milk, which seemed to help bring the dough together. I liked this idea so I went ahead and added it into the recipe. However, I didn't have any milk so I substituted cold water and they end result was perfectly fine. Overall, I highly recommend this recipe even if you live in a place where Cheez-Its are readily available.

Recipe via www.cookingalamel.com

Prep Time: 3 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Makes: approx 75 crackers

Ingredients:

1 1/2 - 2 cups (180g) cheddar cheese, grated
3/4 cup (100g) self rising flour
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp butter
1 tsp water
Sea salt for scattering (optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375F/176C.

In the bowl of a food processor, add all the ingredients except the water. Pulse at 5 second intervals until the mixture has the consistency of coarse grain. At this point, add the water and pulse until the dough forms a ball. (I had to make it into an actual ball by hand since my mixer didn't have enough space for it to happen inside it)

Divide the dough in half and roll out one half between two sheets of parchment paper. Using a knife or a pastry cutter, cut out your shapes and move to a baking sheet. Using a skewer or fork, poke each of the crackers so that the steam can escape and they won't poof up entirely. Sprinkle on a bit of sea salt and bake for 8-9 minutes until the edges are browned and the crackers have risen. Enjoy!